


One Thing

by Sineala



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011), Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing worse than being the son of the Butcher of Komarr is being the son of his political officer. [An Eagle/Vorkosigan fusion.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Vorkosigan's Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/108899) by [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha). 



> This was originally intended to be the beginning of a much longer fusion with much more plot, but I think this part stands on its own well enough. It is very heavily inspired by Philomytha's story [Vorkosigan's Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/108899) \-- it is more or less a remix of the setup, featuring Marcus Aquila.
> 
> Story contains no onscreen graphic violence, but it does have discussion of Solstice.
> 
> Assistance of various plotting and betaing types provided by Lishan and Carmarthen, who probably still want me to write the sequel now.

Marcus Voraquila had known it was never going to be easy, but he was enduring the Academy. It wasn't that much harder than anything he'd put up with in the rest of his life. There were, as there had always been, the usual petty jokes -- his uniforms stolen or dirtied, his notes mysteriously gone the night before an exam, and the one miserable time two weeks before Winterfair when he'd ended up in his underwear in the snow, locked out of the dormitories. Those were only jokes. Those, he could handle.

But today was Vorkosigan's lecture, and no amount of preparing was going to make him ready for this. Oh, he knew, from the more senior cadets, what it was about -- some kind of lecture on ethics, on illegal orders, with particular focus on Admiral Lord Vorkosigan's role in the Solstice Massacre.

_It was gruesome_ , the whispers went, sometimes in tones of horrified delight, others just in tones of horror. _There's vid footage and everything! He makes you watch it!_

Marcus didn't want to know anything about it. He knew enough to last him a lifetime. The message sent out last week had indicated, in a manner Marcus was sure was meant to sound neutral, that material of an upsetting nature would be shown and discussed, and that they were welcome to opt out. But being technically permitted to do so was one thing, and being practically able to do so was quite another.

His honor was at stake. He was Marcus Voraquila, and if he did not watch this everyone would know that he hadn't, and they would never, never stop.

* * *

Marcus' dress uniform was soaked through with sweat by the time Admiral Vorkosigan stepped onto the podium. Marcus watched as Vorkosigan's eyes flickered over the sea of cadets, briefly locking eyes with Marcus himself, and then-- nothing. The admiral's gaze moved on.

This was it, then. He had been hoping against hope, shamefully dreaming over the course of the past week that there would be some honorable way to get out of this, or at least to lessen the pain. Perhaps Vorkosigan would have a list of students, would see his name on the list -- AQUILA, MARCUS FLAVIUS, it would say at the very top, for here at the Academy they were all equal, no Vor lords among them -- and then the admiral would contact him privately, would let him know, would send him a sign.

Nothing.

Perhaps it was not Vorkosigan's custom to see a class list of the course he was only giving a guest lecture for. After all, it was not as though there were any Komarrans, relatives perhaps of Solstice's victims, here to take offense.

Perhaps Marcus' name had been deleted from the list on purpose. It would not be unexpected. Another prank, like everything else.

Or perhaps Vorkosigan had seen Marcus' name on the list and had chosen to do nothing. 

The lecture had already started, gone unnoticed somewhere in the midst of Marcus' tangled, frightened thoughts, and Marcus could hardly make the admiral's speech parse into words in his head. He hunched down in his seat and hoped Vorkosigan would not call on him to answer any of these questions.

"What is an illegal order?" Vorkosigan asked, and the class leaned forward with interest. Here was the famed Butcher of Komarr, after all, beginning to touch upon the very incident.

Marcus shut his eyes and clenched his fingers against his palm until it hurt.

He had no idea what Vorkosigan said. He had no idea what anyone else said. Taking notes was out of the question. But all he had to do was endure this one lecture, just sit through it, and then he could leave. Perhaps he could go get very drunk, later.

And so the lecture went on, and on, until Vorkosigan stepped down from the podium and hope flared in Marcus that now it would be over. But, no, now the worst was upon him.

"We will now discuss the Solstice Massacre," Vorkosigan said, calmly, so calmly, as if it was nothing to him. "Archival footage of the massacre exists, and I will begin by showing approximately five minutes of it, prior to discussion." The vid-screen descended slowly behind him. "I remind you that you are free to leave now or at any time, and I will be available in my office after class if you wish to speak to me."

As the room darkened, Marcus heard Alexandropoulos behind him whispering to Petrov. "Bet you anything Voraquila'll leave first."

There was a quiet chuckle of agreement. Marcus felt his face flush hot with shame. He would stay. He had to. It was only footage of slaughter, surely. Oh, it would be violent -- he was certain of that, from the descriptions -- but that would be watchable. No, he had decided, it was the discussion afterwards that would be the problem, when they started talking about Vorkosigan's orders, about what if you were there, and you had been told to open fire on the hostages. About his hated political officer, no doubt.

Vorkosigan may have been the Butcher of Komarr, but everyone knew -- because he told them! -- that it had been his political officer's orders. The responsibility may have been his, oh yes, but the dishonor all belonged to the dead man now.

And then the vid started.

It was fuzzy at first, and the camera tilted to one side, but then it focused. There were, as Marcus had thought there might be, the Komarran hostages -- men and women both -- clustered in groups all around the gymnasium. The mic barely picked up their quiet, terrified whispers, a little too low to make sense of.

Then the soldiers marched in. They were a neat row of men, resplendent in their uniforms, with their superior officer trailing behind. Marcus relaxed a little. There, they would open fire soon. He could watch that. It was only death.

The footage blurred again as the door swung open another time, and behind them came another man. A tall man, dark-haired, clad in the sleek and unmistakable uniform of the old Ministry of Political Education, pacing slowly and purposefully forward. A man who knew himself to be the authority in the room. A man whose face Marcus still saw in his dreams.

He couldn't breathe. 

_No_ , he thought, frantically, _no, no, they didn't tell me it was like this--_

On the vid, one of the hostages stepped forward. He was an older man, his red hair thinning, and his jaw was tilted up, set firm in quiet defiance.

"Would you mind," the man asked, his Komarran accent unmistakable, "telling me why you have come here?"

The camera focused on the man in uniform now: Aral Vorkosigan's political officer. Gaius Voraquila. In Marcus' dim memories of his father, his father was always happy, was smiling, laughing. His father's face here was frozen into a cruel, cold sneer. He said nothing in reply.

_My father could never have done that_ , Marcus used to think to himself, secretly. _My father was a good, kind man. My father loved me_. They were wrong, somehow, all wrong, he had thought. It had been a mistake.

Marcus watched, sicker and sicker by the second, as his father moved back, next to the line of troops, turning to their commander.

"Kill them," his father said.

And Marcus, his vision greying already at the edges, stomach roiling, was out of his seat even before the shooting started, running toward the door of the lecture hall even as Alexandropoulos snickered. He pushed open the door just as the room went brighter; on the screen, the soldiers were beginning to fire.

He made it to the toilets just in time and vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach -- not that there had been much to begin with -- and his mouth burned with the acid.

He was dimly aware of a few other people joining him in his misery in the nearby stalls; they had at least waited, understandably, until the gore started in order to become ill from it. But one by one they all drifted slowly back to the lecture, leaving him alone.

Marcus stayed. There was no point in going back. It was all true, the worst of it; he had seen it. What was Vorkosigan going to tell them? Nothing was going to make it any better.

_What is an illegal order?_ he imagined the admiral was asking them again, right now.

_The order my father gave_ , Marcus thought, bitterly. _The one you killed him for._

He cried, because there was no one to hear him.

A long while later, the door opened again.

"Cadet?" a voice called. "The lecture's over. I brought you your things. You'd left them in the room."

Marcus pushed himself up from the tiled floor, out of the stall, and he found himself face to face with Admiral Aral Vorkosigan. He was shorter than he'd always looked on the vids, Marcus could only think, stupidly.

"Sir," Marcus said, reflexively, drawing himself up and saluting even as his mind emptied of words and filled itself again only with pain and anger.

And then the admiral smiled, just a little. "It's all right, cadet," he said, and Marcus found himself liking the man and simultaneously hating himself for liking him. "Clean yourself up and come to my office, why don't you?"

With those words, Vorkosigan was gone again.

Marcus rinsed himself off, staring at his face in the mirror, eyes bloodshot, capillaries broken.

Vorkosigan didn't know him. He hadn't recognized him. He probably thought that Marcus was ashamed of having left the hall, of having been sick. He was probably going to deliver a mass of platitudes about how war was brutal and violence was brutal and it was a sign of his humanity, really, that he had been appalled.

Marcus was already well acquainted with that.

* * *

"Come in."

Marcus stepped into Vorkosigan's office and saluted again. "Admiral," he said. _I will be the perfect officer_ , Marcus thought to himself as he struggled to keep his face composed. _I will do this. I'll show them, I'll show everyone_. There were men who had been on the wrong side during Vordarian's Pretendership, after all, and they could swear oaths, they could be back in favor. Couldn't he?

And Vorkosigan gave the same kindly smile from earlier. "Ah, hello. Shut the door behind you, if you like."

Gratefully, Marcus did. His hands were shaking, he knew. But he was standing, he was still upright. He could do this.

"I noticed you were the first out of the hall," Vorkosigan said, his voice soft, reassuring. "And I have to say--" there was a little bit of confusion in his tone-- "that I have been giving this lecture for a few years now, and I hadn't before seen anyone who left after the vid started but before the shooting did. I thought you might like to talk about it."

Marcus swallowed, painfully, past his still-burning throat. "Sir," he said, steeling himself. "My name is Marcus Voraquila--"

That was all he could get out, but it was all that mattered.

Vorkosigan's eyes went wide, and then he paled. He hadn't known. He really hadn't known.

"Sit down," he rasped, after long seconds measured themselves out in the agonized thunder of Marcus' heartbeat. And as Marcus dropped to the chair quickly, before he fell, Vorkosigan continued, looking genuinely appalled. "I wish I'd known. I didn't even know he had a son. I am so sorry. If I'd known you were here, I could have--"

"It doesn't matter," Marcus forced out. "I had to go, or the other cadets, sir, they'd never let me hear the end of it. I only didn't think I would see--"

He squeezed his eyes shut before he could start crying again, in front of Admiral Vorkosigan, no less. He was Vor, and he would not shame himself.

"It's all right," Vorkosigan said, even though it wasn't, it wasn't at all.

_How did it feel when you broke my father's neck?_ some perverse part of him wanted to ask. _Did he die proudly with honor, at least, or did he beg?_

"I didn't even know what my father did, when it happened," Marcus said, not knowing why he was saying it, as he opened his eyes again. "I was little. He didn't-- he didn't talk about his work. And then, well, you know how the communication was then, sir, it was weeks before my mother found out."

There was more sympathy on Vorkosigan's face now. "I'm sorry."

"She-- she killed herself, sir," Marcus added, because he might as well, now that he had told this much of it. "My aunt raised me."

And he waited now, to see what Vorkosigan would say. No doubt more about his father, and he couldn't take it, he couldn't--

"Your father was a good man," Vorkosigan began. "A good man who gave a bad order and thought he was doing the right thing."

Marcus stared.

It was a lie, of course, but it was a good one. Vorkosigan even managed to make it sound convincing.

"I--" and now Vorkosigan was not even looking at him-- "I didn't enjoy doing it, and I think now, if I had to, I'm not sure I could kill him. Call it my wife's Betan influence, or having a son of my own. I don't know."

Was that supposed to make him feel better? Vorkosigan had done it anyway, after all.

"Thank you," Marcus said, entirely unsure of what to say, but feeling like thanks was something people said at these moments. He didn't even know what he was feeling. He'd spent his life being angry, pondering what he might say if he ever met this man, and now he was numb to the whole thing.

Vorkosigan smiled a little, but the smile was considerably more haunted now. "Can I-- is there anything I can do for you? The rest of the lecture was recorded; you can watch it." He paused. "But I mean, in a broader sense. It must have been hard for you to get into the Academy."

Marcus nodded, acknowledging the truth. He hadn't known anyone, really, who would write him a good recommendation, even though the entrance exam itself had been easy enough. He'd pulled all the strings he could just to get in, but he was now out of strings, and he was fully aware that, no matter his grades, he was likely to end up at some hideous place like Kyril Island after graduation.

"It doesn't bother me," he said, ignoring the little pang of sadness, because of course it did. "I knew that I was going to have to earn my way, sir. Can't expect to have everything handed to me."

Vorkosigan settled back in his chair, and his face furrowed, thoughtfully. "I can't change the past--"

And then he figured out what Vorkosigan must be offering. Marcus' stomach twisted again; he was not entirely sure he wanted anything more from his father's killer. "No, sir, please."

"Damn it, Voraquila," Vorkosigan said, his voice suddenly harsh, and that was when Marcus stared at him and saw, really saw, the grief in Vorkosigan's eyes. He'd meant it. He was honestly, truly sorry. "Let me do something. One thing."

"All right," Marcus replied, but he couldn't bear it any longer and had to look away.

* * *

At graduation, everyone except Marcus was surprised when he pulled ship duty.


End file.
